27.3.12

Slate is a grand experiment in trolling the rest of the internet, and in general, I try to avoid taking the bait. But this is just too dumb: the Supreme Court shouldn't comment on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act because Congress and the President have already decided it's constitutional. No, really:
Passing a major, controversial piece of national legislation is a heavy lift. It requires the support of 218 members of the House, 60 Senators, and the president. It requires committee hearings and grandstanding, takes up hundreds of hours of cable news time and thousands of inches of newspaper columns, engages activists of all stripes, and requires intense negotiation, the expenditure of political capital, and the imperiling of electoral prospects. It should not also require the blessing of Anthony Kennedy.

I suppose it will be sufficient to point to the Defense of Marriage Act as a federal law passed under the same conditions. There. Now no one will like this argument.

2 comments:

Chris C. said...

Seriously, why do we need a Supreme Court anyway? It's not like Executive and Legislative power need to be checked or anything.

rosebriar said...

As I understand it, this is the Newt Gingrich theory of constitutionality. I guess we really let judicial overreach go too far in Marbury v. Madison.